Is the Time Ripe for a New Party?

To answer this question, two contributing questions must be answered: Is a new party necessary, and is it possible?

These answers are straightforward:

1.Most of us will agree that change is necessary. So, if the political monopoly formed by our twin party tyranny is beyond reform, then a new party is necessary.

2.New parties started from scratch have never yet grown powerful after the first parties in our nation formed and thereafter blocked all new ones; but new parties arising from the break-up of failing major parties havesucceeded! So, at least when this condition is met, it actually is possible.

So, how does the land currently lay?

With the two major parties dominating for such a long time, it seems impossible to many Americans that a new party could successfully form and grow to where it can take over and serve the people instead of the 1% and their corporations. Our antiquated electoral system imposes the domination of two major parties and turns third parties and candidates into election spoilers that may divide up all the good votes so that an unpopular evil candidate can win. Therefore, habitually, too few Americans dare to vote for new parties. And so – despite the fact that, for a number of years, the majority of Americans has been wishing for a new party alternative – faith in its realization is still shaky. Maybe no longer rightly so. Circumstances make all the difference. What are the circumstances?

We currently have a mass exodus of people from the “Democratic” Party after its very undemocratic tampering with last year’s presidential primaries and its continued, stubborn dedication to its corporate paymasters in the face of a public awakening and outrage about its GOP-like corruption (examples: tampering with last year’s primaries, the rewarding of corrupt former party chairwomen, the selection of Tom Perez as the new party chairman, failure to vote for cheaper medications or demand Medicare for All, failure to oppose oligarchs in the new presidential cabinet, the continued soliciting and taking of massive amounts of corporate money with strings attached, pushing for yet another catastrophic war, and so on).

The millions of political refugees leaving the “Democratic” Party need a new party to go to. We also have independents as the largest voter block nowadays (at least 40%). These are people who already felt unrepresented by the party duopoly years ago and are ready for a new party which WILL represent them. Last, but not least, we have a vastly popular politician, the most popular politician in all of America and in a long time, who has been trying to bring people back into the hemorrhaging “Democratic” Party in his effort to return that party to its people-rather-than-corporations-serving core principles it had decades ago. But even he hasn’t been able to do so. Nor does the “Democratic” Party show any signs of letting itself be reformed, not even recently. It’s upper reaches are filled to the brim with unscrupulous bribe-takers who happily sell out the people, just like the Republican Party, and it has been proven time and again that these crooks won’t release their strangle-hold as long as the party and its undemocratic structures still live. All the “Democratic” Party does these days, is block a representative choice for American voters, and we are becoming aware of that.

When you sum it all up, it looks like there remains only one way forward: form a new party from the fragments of the crumbling “Democratic” Party, preferably under the leadership of that most popular politician (Bernie Sanders) who is most popular because he DOES represent all the disgusted, unrepresented people among independents, Dem-refugees, and even traditional GOP voters. This mix of circumstances is exactly what destroyed the predecessors of our current major parties and created our current major parties centuries ago from the ashes of their disintegrating predecessors. So, current circumstances make a new major party in our country both necessary and possible — and even our most likely of all conceivable solutions. Something to think about, isn’t it?

Before you think that all this is mere theory, a movement has already formed to perform a modern repeat of Abraham Lincoln’s Whig-Exit and creation of the Republican Party (over the issue of slavery back then, over the issue of corporatism today), and in only three months since going public in alternative media (since our mass media will hush it up like it originally tried to hush up Sanders’ presidential campaign) it has already gathered over 30,000 signatures. Today, yes today, it is launching a phone storm of Bernie’s office to let him know of the growing movement and ask for his support.

For those who worry that Bernie Sanders might decline or hesitate too long, let’s not forget that in Bernie’s wake other people’s candidates have been rising and could take over for him when necessary. The issues represented by them matter tremendously to the majority of Americans.

By the way, as I explained before, I don’t consider party reform attempts like those of Bernie Sanders, Brand New Congress, Our Revolution and the Justice Democrats mutually exclusive with this new party creation attempt. Rather, I see them as complementary. Reform and internal shake-up of the “Democratic” Party can pave the way for a new, better party; and the threat of a viable new party can soften the neoliberal/corporatist resistance and provide a contingency plan for us, the people, if (or when!) the DP reform fails.

Things move quickly nowadays, sometimes too quickly to keep up. Here are some of my articles and posts about this new party movement, Draft Bernie for a People’s Party, if you wish to learn more: